Ancient Embers
by w3akness
Summary: For the first time as a junior auror, Harry Potter is asked to take the lead on an investigation. As incidents of dark ritual magic crop up across the British Isles, threats from the past put into jeopardy Harry's career, personal life, and the future of Wizarding Britain.
1. Chapter 1: The Assignment

Harry Potter wasn't in a terribly familiar place. Surrounded by tall pines, the scent of sap and decay filled his nose. The dim light of a waning crescent moon filtered through the needles and the light mist, doing very little to illuminate his surroundings as his feet gingerly plodded forward on the soft, peaty ground.

" _Where, the…"_ Harry began to think, but was interrupted by a soft voice echoing throughout the trees.

"Harry…" the voice called out, seemingly no louder than a whisper.

It was a familiar voice, but he could not quite place it. It was like Hermione's without the severity, or Ginny's without the playfulness. Like Luna's, but more grounded, deeper. Certainly feminine, but androgynous enough to make him question it.

"Harry…" the voice repeated.

With that, an inviting hand suddenly emerged through the darkness in front of him. Without hesitation, he grabbed onto it gently and held on.

"You need to see this." The voice said, no longer echoing. It was clearly right in front of him and no doubt belonged to the owner of the hand he was holding, but still, it maintained an ethereal, silky quality to it.

Guided by the unseen, he continued forward until the trees began to thin and the ground grew harder. He began to see a faint glow in the distance.

"Look down." The voice implored.

And as he did, he could see that he was at the edge of a cliff, looking out over a massive city that seemed to stretch into infinity, the golden glow of its lights so bright it made him squint.

"Where are we?" Harry asked, but no response came.

Somehow, he was alone again.

And just as he turned to walk away from the edge, the ground below him slipped away, and before he realized what happened, he was over the edge, free falling, desperately reaching out for any type of handhold, but there were none to be found. He dug into his robes and snaked his fingers around his wand.

Harry woke with a start, bolt upright, gasping for air, pain cutting through his forehead. Instinctively, he reached his hand up to rub his scar, but realized the pain was on the other side. He mopped the slick of sweat off his brow and as he felt something pecking against the backside of his hand, right over the pain in his forehead.

Peck. Peck. Peck.

"Bloody hell." He muttered as his eyes slowly came into focus.

He saw the source of his pain. A ministry paper airplane memo repeatedly crashing in to his forehead. He snatched it out of the air with the skill of any champion quidditch seeker.

"Just how long have you been doing that?" He said out loud to the memo as he unfolded it.

Potter,

You're needed in Northern Ireland ASAP.

See me for details.

-Davis

P.S. Fall asleep at your desk one more time

and it will be detrimental to your career.

And that's when Harry realized he was at work.

The walk to the department head's office was only mildly humiliating. With every junior auror's desk he passed he was greeted with some sarcastic variation of "Morning, Potter."

Harry knocked tentatively on Davis' door, and looked through the window. Not even looking up from his paperwork, Davis made a gesture for Harry to enter.

"Sir?" Harry croaked out as he entered the office, his voice still sleepy.

"Right, Potter." Davis replied indifferently in his thick Scouse accent, straightening a large stack of papers in front of him.

"I need you to take the lead in a situation up near Ballycastle - you'll be there a couple days, maybe a week or two, certainly no longer than a month" Davis continued, "Portkey's in the usual place, leaving in two hours. All the relevant information's in this brief." Davis plopped a heaving-looking manila envelope in front of Harry with a dull thud.

"But sir," Harry replied.

"And Potter," Davis interrupted, "do I need to remind you not to share that information with anyone?"

"Sir," Harry continued, "my wife is coming back to London tonight…"

"Potter," Davis interrupted again, with a sense of finality, "do you want to be a junior auror forever?"

"No sir, it's just... er… we haven't seen…"

"Two hours, Potter," Davis interrupted yet again, this time giving Harry a dismissive gesture, "and don't forget the brief."

Harry snatched the heavy envelope off the desk and turned on his heels, cursing under his breath as he exited the office. It was true, he hadn't seen Ginny properly in a month, with so few hours left over between his duties at work and her string of international friendly matches in Asia with the Holyhead Harpies.

He dashed out of the department to a sarcastic round of applause and rushed home, shuffling through the dozens of pages in the envelope as he rode the Underground back to Croydon.

Reading through briefing information he muttered under his breath,

"Dead house elf… dark magic suspected… ancient runes… no witnesses... "

It wasn't until he was unlocking the door to his flat that the gravity of the situation hit him. The future of his career was riding on this investigation. He sighed and rubbed his forehead, still sore from the memo's papercut. Doubts began to creep into his thoughts.

Sure, he was hired as an auror after the war was over, but he had never even finished his education. And even when he was at Hogwarts, other people did half of his work for him. Hermione mostly, with some potions help from the Half Blood Prince. As he collapsed on his couch to get his thoughts together, he realized that this would be the first time he would have to do something completely on his own.

A quick glance at the clock on the wall revealed to him he only had an hour left to get packed and get to the portkey. " _Gotta get moving,_ " he thought, getting up from the couch begrudgingly to toss whatever clothes first caught his eye into a suitcase.

The clock ticked away menacingly. " _Thirty minutes…_ " Harry thought, now entering a mild state of panic. He ran through a mental checklist and hurried for the door.

" _Oh shit,_ " he thought as he grabbed the doorknob, " _almost forgot._ "

Grabbing a quill, he scrawled down a note on the back of the first piece of paper he saw: the back of a utility bill.

Gin,

Called away urgently for work.

Will try to meet you at the spot at 9 tonight.

Sorry, I wanted to give you a better homecoming.

Love,

H

And with that, he scuffled out the door, now with only 25 minutes to get to the portkey.


	2. Chapter 2: The Scene

Harry's knees buckled as the portkey slammed him into the ground, jolts of pain shooting up from his ankles to his hips. For a moment he tried to keep his balance, but almost immediately tumbled backwards, skinning his hands on the rough ground as he reached back to break his fall. He found himself on a craggy outcropping on the seashore, the evening air crisp and cool.

" _Couldn't have set me down on that nice patch of grass, eh?_ " Harry thought, looking around at the vast green pastures behind him.

He got up, grimacing, and dusted himself off. To his right, the shoreline stretched off into the distance, and to his left, he could make out a narrow, winding road that followed the shore up to a small town several hundred meters away.

" _I suppose that's as good a place to start as any."_ He thought, as he struggled to clamber up and down the rocks toward the road.

He hadn't made it far down the road when he spotted two men in dark cloaks approaching him, one tall, one shorter.

"Alright, you're the auror then?" the shorter one asked in a gruff voice.

Harry nodded affirmatively.

"Name's Keane, this is Hayes," the short man continued, gesturing to the tall man, "We're running security for this site."

"Potter," Harry replied, offering his hand.

"Right, give us your wand, then." Keane said, denying the handshake.

Harry produced his wand, handing it over reluctantly. Keane snatched it from his hand and turned his back, gesturing for Hayes to confer. Hayes hunched over to Keane's level and they appeared to speak in hushed tones for some time, occasionally shooting furtive glances over their shoulders in Harry's direction.

Harry's anxiety grew and grew. Just how dangerous of a situation was he walking into? He knew by their uniforms that the men were hit wizards, and the ministry didn't routinely dispatch hit wizards for your everyday, run-of-the-mill murder.

After several minutes, Harry heard Keane mutter an incantation, and a green glow began emanating from what Harry assumed was his wand.

"Alright, _Potter_ ," Keane began, turning around to face Harry, "your wand checks out. We'll escort you to the site, but I'm required to tell you that if you do anything suspicious, I'm under orders to detain and… _interrogate_ you."

A chill ran down Harry's spine with the undercover glee with which Keane said "interrogate."

Hayes handed Harry's wand back, and Harry couldn't help but notice Hayes was looking intently at his forehead scar.

"You've read the briefing?" Keane asked as they turned off the road and headed up a rough, steep, uphill trail.

"Yes." Harry lied, having only skimmed them on the Underground.

"Well, what are your thoughts?"

"Er… I don't know." Harry replied, full of self doubt, eliciting a chuckle from both hit wizards.

"You sure they sent the right auror?" Keane shot back, "You don't look much older than my daughter, fifth year at Hogwarts she is. You on an internship or something?"

"Excuse me," Harry replied defensively, "But I'm the lead investigator in this case, and I have more experience with dark magic than both of you combined. I mean, you do know who I am…"

His last comment was greeted with uproarious laughter from Keane, who continued to laugh for far longer than necessary.

"Oh yes, I know who you are, Potter," Keane said mockingly, "but I've been taking down dark wizards since you were still sucking your thumb."

Harry, now simmering with anger, decided it was best to just keep quiet. But as they hiked on, sweaty, out of breath, and having endured several more jabs from Keane, Harry finally reached his breaking point.

"Alright Keane," Harry spat out, "I think your turn's over. What do you have to say Hayes? Any original insults up there or do you just do whatever Keane says?"

A long silence followed.

"Well, Hayes here," Keane started, "he had his tongue cut out by a real bastard we was taking down in Romania."

Harry's face flushed and all the anger was feeling immediately turned to embarrassment. " _Great._ " he thought. They walked the rest of the way in an indescribably uncomfortable silence.

* * *

Several minutes later, the trail flattened out into a large sheep pasture at the top of the hill. A small group of witches and wizards were gathered around an area where the ground had a faint red glow.

"We'll leave you here then… good luck Potter," Keane said sarcastically, then disappeared back down the trail along with Hayes.

Harry took a few deep breaths and tried to calm himself down.

" _Alright, you've already messed up enough. No more mistakes from here on out. Let's go._ "

Approaching the group, he went through mental checklist after mental checklist, going over as much of his training as he could remember. He knew this investigation could either be the beginning or the end of his career as an auror.

"Evening," Harry offered.

He was met by a few grumbles and tacit nods. There were three witches and two wizards there, all enthralled by the scene before them: the withered corpse of a house elf, like a skeleton dipped in wax, directly in the center of a circle of runes cut into the earth. The runes glowed a pulsating ruby red, almost flickering like a campfire.

"My name's Potter, from the auror department." Harry offered again.

" _Harry_ Potter?" One of the witches piped up.

Harry nodded in response.

"Oh, I thought I recognized you! Pleasure. I'm Lucy Tiseman, and this is… everyone else. We're from the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures."

"Pleasure." Harry responded. "Well what do we have here?"

"We were first on the scene this afternoon." She started. "The farmer who owns this pasture - he's a muggle - came upon this. Called the police and word spread around town like wildfire. Luckily a local witch called us in. Half the bloody town's been obliviated by now.

"Now this guy," she continued, gesturing toward the house elf's body, "when we first got here this afternoon, he looked completely normal, just like he was sleeping, but we couldn't get to him."

"Excuse me?" Harry interjected.

"You see these runes? No one can cross past them without getting burned. Bad. We've tried every kind of counter-enchantment we know, but it doesn't affect the barrier at all. And as the day's gone by, the house elf, his body just started withering away to nothing. Way faster than anything could naturally decay."

"Where did he come from?"

"We don't know yet. One of our witches has been all over the countryside looking for someone with a missing house elf. She's supposed to be back anytime now. I guess we'll see then."

"Well," Harry said, slowly walking around the circle, "Looks like he was killed by magic."

"No shit," one of the wizards nearby said through a cough, eliciting a chuckle from the other two wizards.

Harry shot them a dirty look.

"No apparent wounds, no curse scars, no burns..." He continued. "Did anyone see anything?"

"No witnesses," Lucy replied.

Harry instinctively reached down toward one of the runes.

"Really, don't do that!" The other witch said urgently, holding up a bandaged hand.

Harry pulled his hand back. " _I really wish I'd taken ancient runes at Hogwarts,"_ he thought. Not knowing what else to do, he pulled out a quill and starting writing a report to owl back to Davis. Halfway through a sentence, Lucy broke his concentration.

"Oh, she's back!" she said.

Without looking up, he could hear brisk, determined footsteps walking across the pasture, and an all-too-familiar voice growing louder and louder.

"You just wouldn't believe the way people around here think of house elves!" The witch said, clearly annoyed. "This is the 21st century! Muggles outlawed slavery hundreds of years ago! We're _supposed_ to be better than this! I'm disgusted, ugh, just _disgusted_!"

It was an unmistakable voice.


	3. Chapter 3: The Spot

"Hermione Granger, as I live and breathe!" Harry said through a growing smile. Just seeing the old friend cut through his anxiety like a knife. He dropped his half-done report and ran over to envelop her in a possibly-too-constricting hug.

"Harry, what are you doing here?" She replied, trying to maintain some semblance of professionalism as her face slowly turned crimson.

Harry released the hug. "Well, nice to see you too, old friend."

"S-sorry Harry, it's just you know… stress. It really is nice too see you."

"I'd hate to interrupt the reunion," Lucy said, "but do you have any news?"

Hermione took a deep breath and tried to shift back to professional mode.

"I'm afraid not," she said, "I must have searched the whole county and no one knows - or particularly _cares_ \- about a missing house elf. Anyway, any luck with the runes? Has anyone from the auror office shown up yet?"

"That would be me…" Harry said, slightly hurt.

"R-Right, of course!" Hermione replied, blushing again.

"And no, no luck with the runes." Harry continued.

"Well, it's getting late anyway. Let's head back to town and start fresh tomorrow."

* * *

"To old friends!" Harry exclaimed, clinking a full glass of dark beer against Hermione's.

"Old friends!" Hermione echoed.

Harry took a long drink and settled back into his chair, finally feeling relaxed. Hermione hesitantly sniffed at her glass of beer.

"I don't get how you can drink this." She said, making a face.

She brought the glass to her lips, taking an immeasurably small amount of the opaque liquid into her mouth before making another face.

"Maybe I'll just get a glass of Burgandy…"

"I don't think this is that kind of pub, Hermione. Would you prefer whiskey?" Harry said through a grin.

Hermione shook her head in disgust before braving another drink of her beer.

"Anyway," she said, "how long has it been, a year? What have you been up to?"

"Just working myself to death for Davis. I wish someone had told me that being a junior auror meant doing paperwork 12 hours a day. Then I could've taken up a more fulfilling line of work, like shoveling out Hogwarts' thestral stables."

"Yikes," Hermione responded, "I guess I lucked out then. I've just been made the head of the House Elf Relations Committee."

"Still SPEWing after all these years?" Harry quipped, prompting a playful punch on the shoulder from Hermione.

"Oh shut up you prat!."

"And what about that layabout husband of yours?" Harry asked. "You know, the office just isn't the same without him around."

Hermione pursed her lips, and Harry felt the temperature of the room drop a few degrees.

"Still working at the shop." She said with a sense of finality.

"Well that's great. You know, we really miss you two, we should really have you over for dinner sometime. Soon." Harry said, trying to break the tension.

" _I'd_ love that," Hermione said, "But you'll probably have to come over personally and remove him from the couch."

They both took a long drink.

"Anyway," Hermione sighed, "Speaking of your superstar wife, how has she been?"

"Well," Harry began, "For the last month she's been playing frendlies over in Asia. The month before that was training camp in Wales. And the month before that she was helping to scout prospects in the United States."

"The United States?" Hermione scoffed.

"Apparently quidditch is the hot new thing over there." Harry chuckled.

"So, what do you think of the case?" Hermione deftly changed the subject.

"Er… I don't really know." Harry said pulling out his half-done report. "I guess I was gonna start by trying to translate these runes." He pointed to the sketch of the runes he'd made.

Hermione sighed disappointedly, placing her face in her hands.

"Well first, you've written these upside down." She said, turning the parchment around. "And second, you're never going to translate these properly unless you have a copy of the extremely rare ' _Runes Moste Anciente'_ by Ethelred of Ashdown. It'll help if you can read middle English too."

"Er…" Harry stammered.

Hermione wordless produced a massive tome from her handbag and placed it on the table.

"Today's your lucky day." She said. "See, these are Futhark runes."

"Of course." Harry replied sarcastically.

"They're Nordic runes?" Hermione said as if trying to stir some hidden memory in Harry's mind. "Any book written in the last couple centuries focuses on Anglo-Saxon runes."

"Right." Harry said.

"It's like trying to translate Latin with a Greek dictionary."

Harry just shrugged.

"Some things never change, do they?" Hermione said, slamming the book open.

"I guess not, 'mione."

* * *

Empty glasses littered the table, and empty chairs lined the bar. Harry and Hermione, as well as an old man in a flat cap snoozing away, were the only patrons left in the pub.

"There we have it!" Harry exclaimed.

"There _I_ have it." Hermione playfully corrected him.

Now sitting on the same side of the table, huddled around the parchment, they both read the translation over and over in their heads.

"Yes, but what does it mean?" Harry asked, puzzled.

Hermione yawned and stretched, her left hand briefly grazing across Harry's shoulder.

"We'll have to figure that out tomorrow. I've had a long day," Hermione replied.

Just then, Harry came to a horrific realization, hitting him like a strong punch to the gut. He immediately starting panicking.

"Oh _shit_. What time is it, Hermione?"

"Midnight at the earliest, I'd guess," She said tiredly.

"Oh, _shit._ " Harry repeated, grabbing his belongings off the table before turning to run out the door.

"Harry?" Hermione called after him, but it was too late.

Out in the cool night air, Harry ducked into an alleyway and grabbed his wand, disapparating.

* * *

With a sharp crack, Harry appeared on a grassy hill, about 100 meters away from a stone park bench.

" _God damnit_." He thought. " _Honestly, at this point I don't know which one will be worse: if she's here or if she isn't here."_

But the park bench was empty. He sat down and put his head in his hands. He felt like the world was spinning around him.

Then, he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder.

"Glad you could make it," a curt voice said.

"Gin, I'm so sorry." He said, looking up to see her face, flat and emotionless.

" _This isn't good._ " He thought.

"I'm sure you are," she replied, walking around the bench to sit next to him.

He tried wrapping her up in a hug, which she halfheartedly reciprocated, sniffing at him as he drew close.

"Are you drunk right now?" Ginny said, pushing him away.

"A couple of drinks," Harry replied, now suddenly self-conscious of just how much he was slurring his words.

"So this is your 'Work Thing' is it? A night out with the _fucking_ lads?"

"It's not like that." Harry said, desperately trying to maintain his composure. "It was a work thing and you know, I got all wrapped up in it and we just happened to be at the pub and Hermione was helping me translate.."

"Hermione?" Ginny said, growing visibly angry now, "Oh, so sorry I got that wrong, let me correct myself. You weren't out with the lads, you were out getting drunk with Hermione Granger instead of meeting me here like you _said_ you would. Is that right? Do I have it right now?"

"Gin, no, you've got it all backwards..."

"Tell you what Harry," she interrupted, "you go pass out somewhere, and I'll just go fuck myself, how about that?"

"Ginny, please…" Harry started, but she was already walking away.

"Welcome home, Ginny," she said to herself mockingly, before drawing her wand and disapparating.


End file.
